Recalbox 11
Recalbox 11-patron-1: the biggest update in Recalbox history
By LittleG4M3 · 11 October 2026
Recalbox 11-patron-1 is here, and it's the most important update Recalbox has ever seen. With this version, retrogaming enters a new dimension. Online play has been completely rethought, the media center gets a new look, force feedback steering wheels are coming, and the family of supported systems grows with legendary arcade machines. To thank them for their support, this version is currently available to Recalbox Patrons. This early access also lets us run a full-scale test of these many new features before releasing the stable version to everyone later on.
Recalbox Online: a new way to play together
With Recalbox Online, online multiplayer takes a completely new approach. You face Recalbox players from all over the world, straight from the frontend, in a dedicated virtual system designed entirely around the network experience.
Public or private rooms. Anyone can create a room (a lobby for a game of your choice), open to everyone or reserved for friends. You can see the public rooms created by other players and join them instantly. As soon as two players are ready in the same room, you're off! The game launches automatically.
Themed lounges. Rooms are grouped into lounges: arcade lounge, Capcom lounge, SNES lounge, and many more. This is where you'll find players who share your passion.
One ID, many friends. Every player has their own ID. Add your friends to play together, send invitations, or set out to conquer the whole world. A match proposal can even reach you anywhere in the frontend, announced by the legendary "Here comes a new challenger".
Don't feel like going through rooms? Want to launch online games without going through the Recalbox Online virtual system? No problem: hover over the game you want to play with a friend, press the "Recalbox Online" button, invite your friend, and off you go! Straight from the game list of the relevant system.
Rankings and tournaments. Ranked matches earn points on each game, a global rank, and stars to win. Tournaments are organized, with their bracket and podium, at a fixed time or at a time voted on by the players. Show everyone you're the boss!
Live matches. Games are streamed live in video, with no limit on spectators, and the cups can be rewatched in replay. So you can play, but also come and cheer on and watch the best.
A profile that reflects you. Titles, avatars and cards: your profile tells who you are. You can even play from several Recalbox machines with the same account.
A network configured for you. Your network configures itself automatically to keep latency as low as possible. Nothing to set up, plug and play just like you're used to with Recalbox!
As you've understood, the idea is to offer you a modern online experience, like the one you get on today's consoles and games, but with the games that marked our younger years as gamers: the comfort of modernity combined with the pleasure of retro!
Recalbox Challenges: a new dimension
Challenges are changing scale (again), with personal and community goals. Take them on to earn badges, avatars, titles, profile frames, and also Recoins, Recalbox's virtual currency. These Recoins, which are of course nothing but fake money, let you buy cosmetic items in a virtual shop to customize your profile.
A few other new features along the way:
- Each mission shows the trophy it awards, and each reward shows the badge you'll wear.
- A game completed without using a continue gets the 1CC stamp.
- Every game stays in your history with its replay.
- Your friends are highlighted in the rankings.
- Each challenge displays how much time is left to play it.
Sega Model 1 and Model 2: 90s arcade, now playable online too
This is one of the great prides of this version: Sega Model 1 and Sega Model 2 make their entrance into Recalbox, and they are playable online, just like the Model 3.
Networked arcade games come back to life: Virtua Racing, Daytona USA, Sega Rally, Scud Race, Initial D, Club Kart, OutTrigger, and even Ferrari F355 Challenge Twin. In other words, the arcades of yesteryear, with their linked cabinets, are coming back to life in your living room.
On the display side, Model 1 and Model 2 games appear sharp and well framed on a 15 kHz screen, for fans of cathode-ray displays.
And that's not all. All the systems that were already playable in netplay remain so. The Naomi and Atomiswave fighting games, including Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Capcom vs. SNK 2, now benefit from rollback for reduced latency. The netplay lobby has been redesigned, and it is no longer offered on systems that don't support it.
Why it matters for the project
Beyond all the new features in this version, there is a conviction that guides Recalbox: to make known and preserve these old systems, sometimes more obscure, that have marked the history of video games. The Model 1, the Model 2 or the Namco System 22 haven't always had the visibility of the NES or the Mega Drive, and yet their legacy is immense. Making them easy to launch, and even playable online with the whole world, is a way of keeping them alive and passing them on to new generations of players.
And many other new systems
The list grows considerably. Among the notable additions:
- Arcade: Namco System 22, SNK Hyper Neo Geo 64 and Aleck64.
- Consoles and handhelds: Nokia N-Gage, Tiger Game.com, Casio Loopy, Gamepark GP32, VTech V.Smile, Atari Jaguar CD, Emerson Arcadia 2001, and the PONG AY-3-85XX family.
- Computers: Acorn Archimedes, FM Towns, FM Towns Marty, Fujitsu FM-7, Sharp MZ, NEC PC-6001 and several others.
- Game engines: Godot Engine (on Raspberry Pi 4, Raspberry Pi 5 and PC) and BennuGD.
- New port: Jazz Jackrabbit 2.
Also worth noting: MAME 0.287 joins 0.278, and picoarch arrives as a lighter alternative to RetroArch.
Recalbox TV: the new media center
Recalbox TV replaces Kodi. Designed for the gamepad, it works just as well over HDMI as on a cathode-ray screen, with a media player built directly into the frontend.
There you can find:
- your personal media: automatically detected network shares, or a drive plugged into the Recalbox;
- your Plex, Jellyfin and DLNA media servers;
- Pluto TV, Plex, Twitch, Crunchyroll and many others can be integrated;
- IPTV channel lists and live TV from a Freebox, with its program guide;
The library recognizes your movies and series thanks to TMDB and TheTVDB, and sorts them by genre, decade and source. Playback resumes where you left off, the next episode plays automatically, and watched movies are checked off. Your TV remote can even control Recalbox through the HDMI cable.
Movies are played at their own native rate: 24 Hz over HDMI, their own resolution on a CRT, 48 Hz with an RGB Dual. And a RecalCard can directly launch a movie or an episode.
Force feedback steering wheels supported
Racing game fans are in for a treat. Recalbox supports force feedback on:
- Logitech G29 and G923;
- Fanatec CSL DD, Gran Turismo DD Pro, ClubSport DD and CSL Elite (base in PC mode), with several additional models in experimental support.
A new virtual system, Wheels, groups together arcade games played with a steering wheel, such as Out Run, Daytona USA or Pole Position. A dedicated menu offers a test screen, and the range and effects can be adjusted per system and per game. A wizard greets you the first time you plug one in, and the paddle shifters change gears in several racing games.
Improved performance
On Raspberry Pi 4 and 5, 3D games run faster. On Pi 4, Sega Model 3 games like Sega Rally 2 now run at full speed.
And also...
- Dual Output: on Raspberry Pi 5 with a Recalbox RGB Dual 2, RGB JAMMA or JVS, the CRT image is also displayed on an HDMI screen, in three styles (smoothed, scanlines, sharp pixels).
- Adjustment of R, G and B levels directly from the board's menu.
- A new Information tab that gathers everything about your Recalbox, and a Health tab that warns you when something is wrong.
- Smarter scraping, which finds the right game even when the file name is wrong.
- Support for Gun4IR light guns.
- Better handling of Steam Deck consoles, with the built-in controller properly mapped and TV output when it's in its dock.
- A new BIOS-style startup video for console mode.
So that this article doesn't run to 20 pages, we'll stop here, but if you'd like the full release notes, here's where to find them.
Thank you
Recalbox 11-patron-1 is the result of an enormous amount of work, and it wouldn't exist without your support. If you are Patrons you have early access to this version: try it, play online, and above all, tell us what you think. Your feedback is precious for polishing the experience before the release for everyone. In that regard, thank you to the beta testers for their feedback, and thank you to the Alpha Patrons, and also to the Alpha Patrons who volunteered to test and fine-tune Recalbox Online with us.
See you online. Here comes a new challenger!
Enjoying the Recalbox team's work? Support the project by becoming a Patron!